Black Friday online sales buck austerity trend
by Steven Mostyn - Dec 3 2011, 15:01
Image: sfxeric/Flickr.
If you took part in the recent post-Thanksgiving surge of consumer spending (but chose to dodge the bricks-and-mortar stampede), you’ll be thrilled to learn that you contributed to one of the biggest online spending sprees ever. So much for caution and austerity, eh?
According to figures released by comScore, Internet sales hit $816 million USD during the Black Friday weekend, which is a leap of 26 percent year-on-year when compared to last year’s $648 million USD.
As a result, online store traffic received a healthy boost of 35 percent as some 50 million American consumers sought out electronic bargains galore.
Retail behemoth Amazon enjoyed the greatest share of momentum (some 50 percent more than its closest rival), while the likes of Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple all notched up plenty of traction.
Although Cyber Monday figures are not yet available, comScore is predicting total online sales of around $1.2 billion USD—which is a $200 million USD increase over 2010’s numbers.
Comment on this Story